Arizona silver belt., 1887-01-29
FEi E1NAL ADEiC-.
A Fathers Talk with His I!oref,,
 Twelve yrl-.-. .sIl vs,,-

'A Fathers Talk with His UorefuI
 TweIvc-YoaT- Old Eav.
 My dear boy, this is your twelfth birthday, and to commemorate the hap py event I want to give you some whole some advice.
 have observed that physically and mentally you are ripening under the democratic influences of a free school. and I wish to encourage you in this at tention to study If it were not for studiousness on thepart of our boys this great country would be destitute of a legislative Congress. Of course. I don't intend to say how much better it would be without a Congress, for in that I should be digressing.
 But concerning school. have no doubt that you can whip the teacher. should occasion. demand, but don't do it. Content yourself with assuring the other poys of the fact and learn to let him have bis way. If, however, you should some time be determined to ten der him a chast' Sement, choose some boy whom you dislike and persuade him to do it; the result coald not be other than gratifying.
 You are now approaching a crisis in life. At your age a boy begins 10 grow in love with himself and at eighteen he has what cold, unfe1ling world calls the big-head. l trust to you to be rid of it before you are twentv-one. but if not. it will by that time have become chrome, and you will find that an un- sympathetic public will, at every op- portunity, take occasion 10 punch it.
 At your time of life men, things and books are in league to take you through a systematic course of lies. Some day you will think that home and the old folks are slow, and some night, in the still watches, you VII get up from a sleepless pillow. tie a few clothes in a handkerchief and start out to see the world.
 Now, don't take the clothes, and don't come back until you get a good look at that great old fraud you have been read ing and dreaming about.
 l mention tho clothes, because you will be likely to take clean ones. and will so muss them in your travels that your mother VII have them to wash when you come back. But l want you to go when you get realy-I wouldn't give a copper for boy who hadn't st some time, taken it into his head to run away.
 You hare often expressed the wish to be a man, but don't hurry old Father Time. His knees are shaky and hs limbs are rheumatic, but his gait is de- captive. Be boy as long as you can and when you are man, don't let the pubic see that you have forgotten all about it.
 Try 10 be sensible, and. f any thing conservative, but let man and boy cal you plain Il all your life.
 Have 6 head of your own. If you don't believe the sun is stationary and that the world turns. say so. You VII be respected, even while you are asked for your proof.
 Try to bear with the world as you will be obliged to leave it pretty much as you found it. Remember it has been running along about the same groove for several thousand years, and that the public would Ee likely to discourage any attempt at radical change.
 Yes, put up with it, my boy. Some day when you are a man. and feel com pefed to flog a boy of about your present build, think it over, and if you have not found my advice to be for the best, you may conclude that your father was an ass.-Deir0i; Free Press.